My Kind of Ball

When tensions run high in the Middleton household, chances are there’s a Rugby match involved. This month, the clan will be tuning in to the most important competition in Europe: the annual Six Nations tournament. Yes, rugger is a brutal sport, but that’s not the only attraction ...

Picture the scene. It’s Saturday afternoon in the Middleton household. The atmosphere is heavy with expectation. All eyes are on the television, and occasionally the tension is broken with excited shouts of “Pass the ball!” or “Tackle him now!” It’s my grandmother, the leader of the Middleton pack, and we’re watching England play Ireland in the 1996 Five Nations Rugby tournament, a moment that will remain indelibly in my mind. Granny was incredibly, ferociously competitive—a gene which we have all inherited—and we would always worry she’d injure herself by getting overexcited. She was in her mid-80s at the time, but that didn’t stop her from having a crush on Jeremy Guscott, England’s heartthrob player of the 1990s. Rugby was a big thing for our family, and the focal point was international matches, which were often played on Saturday afternoons and were as much social as sporting occasions. We’d plan our weekends around the big matches, a quick bite to eat at halftime or lunch on our laps, typically a chicken potpie or something equally cozy and English. If we lost, my dad would be in a state of despair for the rest of the afternoon, as if he’d actually lost the game himself. I, meanwhile, would merely be pining after the likes of Will Carling or Jonny Wilkinson, the heroes when I was a teenager.

Beginning this month, the most important competition in Europe will take place: the Six Nations, an annual tournament between England, France, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and Italy.

I for one am definitely a supporter of Rugby more than soccer, but I tend to agree with Elizabeth Taylor’s verdict on the two: “I prefer Rugby to soccer. I enjoy the violence in Rugby, except when they start biting each other’s ears off.” Herewith, a little history and background on the sport, one which Oscar Wilde described as “a good occasion for keeping thirty bullies far from the center of the city.”

TRY AND TRY AGAIN The London Wasps hoist the author. (Click image to enlarge.)

ORIGINS

The commonly held belief is that Rugby was invented in 1823 at Rugby School, a boys’ public school set in the Warwickshire countryside, when William Webb Ellis, a pupil there, was playing in a soccer match and picked up the ball and ran with it. In 1987, the International Rugby Board named the Rugby World Cup “the Webb Ellis Cup.”

RULES

Each team has 15 players, divided between the backs (the smaller, faster players, who tend to score the tries, the Rugby equivalent of touchdowns) and the forwards (the bigger, heavier ones, who do the donkey work, such as tackling the opposition). The aim of the game is to score points by getting the oval ball over the opponent’s try line as well as by kicking for points. The game is started with a kickoff, followed by multiple scrums—this for me is the really exciting bit of the game—when usually the eight biggest, heaviest on each side pack down and push against one another to get the ball, which is on the ground. If the ball goes out of play, or is kicked into touch, the game is re-started with a line out: the tallest on each side jump for the ball. It’s a contact sport, and matches last 80 minutes.

FIGHT SONGS

At the start of the match, the national anthems play (with bagpipes for the Scots), and everyone stands to sing along, heads held high with pride. During the matches, fans sing favorite Rugby songs in honor of their nation. England, “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”; Wales, “Hymns and Arias”; Scotland, “Flower of Scotland.”

BATTLE CRY

The New Zealand team (known as the All Blacks because of their black jerseys) perform a kind of Maori war dance, known as the haka, before they play games. It is accompanied by thigh slapping and bloodcurdling cries, and the players bulge their eyes, all of which is meant to intimidate the opposition. The All Blacks are currently the world’s most fearsome Rugby force, and the ritual of the haka is surely one of the reasons why. It has to be seen to be believed, and I always look forward to the All Blacks’ playing. Grown men dancing? What’s not to like?

HALL OF FAME

The Rugby World Cup tournament was first played in 1987, with New Zealand and Australia acting as hosts. One of the most celebrated players was Jonah Lomu, a 20-year-old New Zealander who weighed 265 pounds and, at six feet five inches, towered over much of his opposition. In the 1995 World Cup, he trampled Mike Catt, scoring four tries against England in the semi-final, and becoming the most feared player in the tournament. Former England Rugby captain Will Carling famously described Lomu as “a freak”—he was a phenomenal but terrifying player. (Remember, the players don’t wear protective padding.) Another player, and one who won the hearts of many female spectators (including me), was England’s Jonny Wilkinson, whose drop-goal against Australia in the 2003 final—26 seconds before the end of the second extra time—thrillingly gave England its first world-championship title. When Martin Johnson, England’s captain at the time, picked up the 2003 World Cup, it was one of the most memorable moments in English Rugby history.